This invention relates to a method of determining availability of a wireless network connection between a local network and a home network of a mobile user device prior to initiating connection or authentication.
There are a rising number of public wireless local area network (PWLAN) hotspots and a variety of service providers now offering PWLAN services. Many of these operators offer access to users of differing roaming partners.
When a user initially enters an area of coverage of one or more hotspots, it is useful for the user device to be able to determine dynamically the capabilities of a physical network before deciding what to do with that network, e.g. to determine whether authentication will be possible within that hotspot without having to initiate a lengthy authentication exchange that may fail for a variety of reasons, or to carry out other functions, such as association and service selection. Instead, it is better to have some initial information discovered by the user device or terminal to allow it to decide whether a suitable roaming agreement is in place to allow the user to authenticate with the network. This also supports selection of subscription credentials for users that may have relationships with multiple operators.
Therefore, once the initial determination has been made the user can select the hotspot and user credentials with the knowledge that authentication has a good chance of success, since the appropriate roaming agreements are in place.
Existing solutions extend current network-to-user device protocol exchanges to include a listing of roamed operator information. For example, solutions that include a list of roamed operators within the extensible authentication protocol (EAP) Request/Identity message are being developed within the internet engineering task force (IETF). However, there are restrictions on the amount of information that can be included in this way. For future networks where the list of roaming agreements might be quite extensive, these approaches do not offer a long term solution.
Siemens AG (XP-002358194) Information—call handling-roaming 1996, pages 1 to 20 describes features of roaming for cellular subscribers.
WO2004/064306 describes a wireless LAN system in which a request to authenticate a mobile station results in network identification and service information about the service provider being returned.